In the debates about the Kindle and the future of books and the drama involved in publishing and the book biz...we get so worked up that we forget that most of the world is pretty indifferent or even hostile towards books.

Despite the cover, despite the premise, despite the trailer, I still really want to read Pynchon's new Inherent Vice. Despite the title too. And it's been years since I've felt that way about Pynchon. Hm. Maybe it's not despite these things at all, maybe it's BECAUSE of these things.

John Waters' new book, Role Models, is due out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2010.

In the meantime, The Huffington Post is running 5 excerpts.

#1 - Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship, Part 1 of 5"The Manson Family" were the hippies all our parents were scared we'd turn into if we didn't stop taking drugs. The "slippies", as Manson later called his followers, the insane ones who didn't understand the humor in Yippie Abbie Hoffman's fiery speeches on his college lecture tours when he told the stoned, revolutionary-for-the-hell-of-it students to "kill their parents". Yes, Charlie's posse were the real anarchists who went beyond the radical SDS group's call to "Bring the War Home". Beyond blowing up their parents' townhouses, draft boards, even the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Sure, my friends went to riots every weekend in different cities in the '60s to get laid or get high, just like kids went to "r…

The paper offers up some meager alternatives, but they neglect to look at the real economics of the situation. By not eating out, buying books, or taking your car to the car wash, in the long run you're hurting the local economy, of which you are a part. What if your livelihood is as a bookseller? What happens when the local independent bookstore shuts down? The economy will turn around, but right now it is important to both save and spend.

The article instead speaks volumes about the state of the particular newspaper: instead of running an informative, intelligent article on smart ways to be savvy with your money during a recession, the paper throws together a mishmash of "suggestions" in as many pictures as words. The Sun, a local business in dire financial straits itself, should be more self-conscious.